Let's modify how common radio works.

[Carver]

8 hours ago, Aboshedab said:

1- You use the common radio as a Director. "Cargo, order food for the crew." They most likely will reply with an aye, maybe ask how many. It won't be a long interaction, and to me, it feels lifeless.

2- You use a holopad as the Director to call cargo. You step on it, set the destination and the call is picked up by somebody there, maybe it's a technician, maybe that person is enough for you, so you place the order, you converse on a more personal level as you're both committed to an interaction.

Alternatively, maybe you'd like their superior, a Quartermaster, it takes time but they show up, you run through the motions with them of what you need and so on.

Maybe no one answers, that can happen, we call people irl and sometimes they don't pick up, maybe no one was around to accept the call or maybe they were ignoring it, so you walk down to cargo and you find a reason on why you were ignored. It could be that they were goofing around, lazy or maybe they just weren't around. Regardless of what you found and why, you have a number of actions you can take. Maybe send IAA after them. Maybe give them a stern talking to. Maybe speak to their HoP? Captain? Maybe they apologize and take your order, no harm done right? 

I feel like in the long run, with some form of implementation that puts value into more interactive measures, we'd benefit. 

Okay so for this Director ordering food example, there's a simple reason it's short and 'lifeless', typically people want to keep it brief. This is no different than the Director going to cargo or PDAing the QM, placing an order in 15 seconds, then fucking off and waiting for delivery. A majority of the time I interact with cargo, assuming I'm not asking for something like a weapon or an item from a hacked lathe, I keep it as brief as possible so I can get back to what I was previously doing. Hell I've found that the longer a cargo visit takes the more I get annoyed at wasted time. The point of keeping it brief over the radio is to be able to call in whatever you want without it interrupting your current task flow. The more inopportune something is, the more likely some people may just not give a shit and ignore doing it.

[Faris]

5 hours ago, TheOrleans said:

I do not work in a billions-worth sci-fi space research station, you know?

 

I totally agree.

The fact that common is used as VoIP may be regulated, but removing Common for everyone would just make you feel 'lonely' in the server, what about the rounds with 10 players? Nah, I don't think this is a good idea

The reason I avoided any mention of regulation is that I foresee that the brig will simply be filled to the brim with crew every round because if you only remove the permission to do something that’s natural, people are still going to subconsciously do it. 

7 hours ago, Conspiir said:

This will make mining suffering. It's already suffering anyway, but at least you can still hear what's going on and get a general sense of how the station is doing. And if need be, you can just make a comment and have some people respond to it. PDAs are dangerous to use out there and time-consuming to take out and type with (plus is only targeted to one person, for a specific reason. It'd be kind of weird to PDA a stranger and be like "Found some neat stuff out here! Haha!"), there are no holopads, request consoles, intercoms, or other people out in space, and carrying a stationbounced is yet another piece of equipment you have to figure out where to put on your body. Miners, as is commonly memed about, would actually become separate from any station issue ever, not by choice ("I don't feel like bothering with the station today... time to play mining!"), but because they simply would have no idea what was going on ever ("What do you mean there were three xenobiological horrors smashing through the station? I did not hear about this.").

 

And I can firmly say that this:

would not happen. The second scenario would actually play out like this:

You use a holopad as the Director to call cargo. You step on it, set the destination, and the call is ignored for several minutes because no one is in the lobby at that moment. If you keep trying, someone will pick up, maybe it's a technician, so you place the order, and the technician says "aye, how many?" so you tell them. And they say "Ordered, it'll be here in a few!" and you hang up, because that was the purpose of your call and a technician does not care about your life story.

 

This would probably cause a very nations-esque feel. Security is security. Medical is medical. Cargo is cargo. There's no reason to interact with somebody when it isn't a business call, no way to just say "Haha, here's a funny thing!" or "How is everyone doing?" and get people engaged.

 

Generally, comms outages are some of the most boring rounds (at least to me). You can't get updates on any issue, so you just kind of stand around your department chatting. And while there's nothing wrong with that, there's also the issue of "Can I do my job now, or is there still a threat of four mercs out there?" which can't get answered until someone gets around to saying so.

 

I wouldn't mind giving it a test-merge. I believe it could give us some good insight. But I agree it will likely make people a lot more lonely, and cliques a lot stronger.

You raise some good points, the whole versus them thing is a topic for debate that I feel through some measure, should turn it into a “we”as opposed to us and them. I don’t think my suggestion is all pros and no cons, there’s definitely going to be cons, and while the easiest choice is to maintain the status quo, I feel like we should give this chance for a test at the very least.

It’s impossible for me to outline everything necessary in my suggestion, so I would be very interested in what you have in mind to improve this suggestion.

6 hours ago, Doxxmedearly said:

A more thought out suggestion than cries to just outright remove it. The command bit is an interesting thought. 

The pros, as I see it, include antags not having to worry about cries happening before they can type "Shh." That's a big positive. Additionally, as Schev said, we get the "screamers" and shittalkers off the common frequency, who treat it more like a chatroom than a series of radio communications. Also MAYBE people would learn not to yell out things on common about medical information and handling peoples' dead bodies...

On the flipside, Conspiir has some really great points that warrant further discussion. Firstly, his take on how the pizza order interaction would go is how it is 9/10 times. Doesn't matter if it's on the radio or on a holopad or in person; that interaction isn't changing much, if at all, I promise you. 

This is the crux of it. Departments already have an issue of "us and them" thinking, and I worry this would strengthen it. Some people are already hurting for interaction, and we can't ignore that while this would help many interact, it would also hurt others. The question I ask myself when I read this is if it helps us more than harms us. I think it prrrrobably would work out as a positive for many. An extensive test merge would tell. As it stands, though, I share conspiir's hesitation.

Do you have any suggestions or modifications to the main suggestion as to improve it? 

3 hours ago, Carver said:

Okay so for this Director ordering food example, there's a simple reason it's short and 'lifeless', typically people want to keep it brief. This is no different than the Director going to cargo or PDAing the QM, placing an order in 15 seconds, then fucking off and waiting for delivery. A majority of the time I interact with cargo, assuming I'm not asking for something like a weapon or an item from a hacked lathe, I keep it as brief as possible so I can get back to what I was previously doing. Hell I've found that the longer a cargo visit takes the more I get annoyed at wasted time. The point of keeping it brief over the radio is to be able to call in whatever you want without it interrupting your current task flow. The more inopportune something is, the more likely some people may just not give a shit and ignore doing it.

I realize the mistake of me outlining the scenario like that, but even then, I find the opportunities in methods other than common for communication to be vastly more enjoyable, even if it’s just a few curt words to deal with the order quickly.

[Carver]

45 minutes ago, Aboshedab said:

I realize the mistake of me outlining the scenario like that, but even then, I find the opportunities in methods other than common for communication to be vastly more enjoyable, even if it’s just a few curt words to deal with the order quickly.

Another advantage in other methods vs common I hadn't exactly outlined before is that people generally pay more attention to their PDAs, and somewhat more attention to other others in person (Though you usually need to use a ringer to get their attention at times even when they're standing right there). I often use my PDA when I explicitly need something because of the fact. Common is flawed, certainly, but it's not all that fantastically multi-purpose as messages can get easily lost in the flood of inane chatter or simply go unseen (I admit I tend to not pay attention to the radio at times).

[AmoryBlaine]

This is a good idea. I have fun using the NTRelay system, and going to the lobbies in order to get the news on what's up in each department. As long as people aren't isolationists, they'll have no trouble staying up to date on information.